Vada-Pav with fried green chili and garlic chutney

Just the title of this post sends me back in Maharastra, my train journeys between Mumbai and Pune and eating vada-pavs all through the journey.... Somehow vada pao tastes best to me when I am traveling. Well, I cannot re-create that here in Canada but could certainly eat vada-pavs and remember those good old days....and to make it like the thela-walas, I made friend chili and garlic chutney too.

For fried chilies:
5-6 green chilies
salt
oil for frying

Just slit the green chilies and deep fry them and then sprinkle some salt on them. Keep them aside.

For garlic chutney:
8-10 garlic cloves peeled
7-8 dry whole red chilies
salt 1 tsp (or to taste)
1 tsp oil

Heat oil in a pan. Put garlic and fry until brown. Remove them. Put red chilies in the same oil and immediately switch off the stove. Grind the red chilies, garlic and salt together. Chutney is ready. This chutney has long shelf life.

Pav:
I have made pavs in the past and them came out real nice. However this time I just bought them from the grocery store :) I actually bought hamburger buns and roasted them a bit on a tava (a flat pan). When I make pav next time, I will take pictures and post the recipe!!

Vada:
Ingredients:
For the filling:
4 medium sized potatos, boiled and peeled
6 cloves of garlic
4 green chilies
1 tsp lemon juice
salt to taste

For the batter: 
3 tsp gram flour
some water
salt to taste
red chili powder to taste
1/2 tsp garam masala

Oil to fry

There are various versions of making filling for vadas. Some recipes call for many many spices to be put with potato, such as coriander powder, garam masala, amchur, turmeric etc. Some fillings are made by actually frying the masalas and mashed potatoes in a pan. However, I like my vadas to be dominated by garlic and I don't like multiple masalas to confuse the garlic flavor (and when I make aloo paratha, I put all possible masalas availbale on earth!!! Will put recipe sometime soon). So I just put garlic, green chili and lemon juice. Lemon actually enhances garlic flavor and at the same time gives some tangy taste. I can just say that try my recipe and you will not regret :)
Anyway, mash the potatoes. Its okay to have few lumps here and there.  Take garlic and red chilies and grind them with hand in a mortar-and-pestle. The texture which comes from not-so-fine grinding in a mortar-and-pestle actually tastes great when you are biting on vadas. Mix the crushed garlic-chilie in the mashed potatoes. Add lemon juice and salt and mix well. Make 2 inch diameter tikkies  and keep them aside. Now put your deep frying pan on stove and let oil get heated. Now for the batter, mix salt, chili powder, garam masala in gram flour. Pour water such that pancake consistency batter is prepared. I actually like my batter to be a bit on the thicker side so that potatoes are nicely coated. Some like to add baking powder in the batter. I don't add it. If you want, add 1/2 tsp baking powder. Now coat potato tikkies in this batter and deep fry.

And finally cut the pavs in two pieces and assemble the vadas in between pavs and relish with fried chili and garlic chutney. If you wish you could also add coriander chutney . I did not have coriander leaves at home so skipped this part.